


The Way She Moves (Like She's Clawing Her Way Out)

by stereokem



Series: Faith and Giles' Halfway House for Wayward Slayers [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Clubbing, F/M, Flirting, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Non-Sexual Touching, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, technically early morning but it's dark so eh, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29400447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereokem/pseuds/stereokem
Summary: A few months into their partnership of equals, Faith and Giles go after a party-hard Slayer in Chicago. (Part of series, but could theoretically be read as a stand-alone. Faith POV).-“Sometimes, you got a dangerous look about you,” she told him. “Real still. Real quiet. You had that kinda look when I tried to tell you that Buffy killed that guy—the Mayor’s assistant. I didn’t realize it then; I thought I had you fooled, you looked so serious and heartbroken.”His expression softened a little at that. “I was,” he replied. “I was heartbroken for you.”
Relationships: Rupert Giles & Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles & Faith Lehane, Rupert Giles/Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles/Faith Lehane
Series: Faith and Giles' Halfway House for Wayward Slayers [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120040
Kudos: 16





	1. Night

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to be read as part of the "Faith and Giles' Halfway House for Wayward Slayers" series, but could potentially be read as a stand-alone.
> 
> For those of you who ARE reading the series... I know it's slow-going. I promise shit will get resolved in the next installment.

“I don’t think she’s here.”

Faith, who had been leaning against the balcony watching the dancefloor, turned away in favor of looking fully at Giles. “We’ve been here two minutes, G,” she yelled over the din of the music and people.

Giles reached up and readjusted his glasses. He looked particularly annoyed. And, if Faith said so herself, particularly hot. They’d been stalking nightclubs in Chicago for the past four days, looking for a Baby Slayer with a penchant for partying; after the first night where Giles had been given several derogatory looks, Faith had told him firmly, and in no uncertain terms, that she was choosing his attire when they went out. This evening, she’d put him in jeans and a Henley shirt with the buttons undone, underneath a beat-up leather jacket. It didn’t quite stop him from sticking out—the clientele of these clubs was mainly twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings trying to keep up, and the occasional forty-something high roller— but at least the looks Giles got now leaned more on the side of curious and occasionally appreciative. Not that he noticed enough to enjoy them.

“And we haven’t seen her,” he replied.

“You know that the next place we go look for her will be just as bad as this one, right?” Faith asked, leaning against the balcony and taking a sip from her plastic cup. It was water but, in a club like this, no one was looking.

Giles frowned, stepping closer so that he didn’t have to shout as much. It put him and Faith in close proximity and she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, which looked both irritated and concerned behind his glasses.

“I’m just worried we’re going to miss her—if she’s somewhere else.”

Faith shifted, dropping her eyes. A warm feeling was starting in her stomach and she tried to tamp it down. That had been happening a lot lately around Giles.

If she was honest, it had been happening pretty regularly ever since they came to the States several weeks ago. Shortly after they’d taken Klara to live at the Slayer Organization in Scotland, Giles had got a call from some sources in the States that there were several Slayers that needed wrangling. So, here they were in the good old U.S. of A. First it was Lewiston, Maine. Then, Marathon, Florida. Now, Chicago. They had been hopping around in motels and hotels for four weeks now; maybe it was something about sharing space all the time, or maybe it was because she hadn’t gotten laid in a month, but these days when she looked at Giles, she felt the beginning of something like arousal deep in her belly.

Which was, like, problematic for a shit-ton of reasons; hence, her trying to quell it.

“Look, G, it’s only eleven-thirty. That’s still early for most kids. I say we just wait around and keep scoping the crowd.” Faith tilted her head and gestured out at the dance floor. “This is, like, one of the most popular clubs on the South side. I think she’ll show.”

Faith was actually pretty confident that Renee Jensen, Baby Slayer in question, would turn up here—if not tonight, then some other night. From everything they could tell, the girl had a knack for getting herself in all the wrong kinds of trouble. She was sixteen and already partying with twenty-somethings, getting into clubs and getting drunk, picking fights with her Slayer strength. She already had a record and had been in juvie. Faith knew the type: Feeling invincible because you were young, and hot, and strong, not knowing just what a world of hurt you were inviting in. Fortunately, girls like that—girls like Faith used to be—were pretty predictable. Renee would turn up. It was only a matter of time.

Giles, on the other hand, didn’t look convinced—that is, he still looked annoyed and uncomfortable. “What do you suggest we do in the meantime? Without looking suspicious?”

Suddenly, the music emanating from the stage changed. What had been a cringy techno set transitioned into a low, heart-rate level base that made Faith grin.

“Dance.” She pressed her water into his hand and moved past him.

“Faith—!”

She ignored him. She knew Giles wouldn’t follow her—men like that were mortified at the thought of dancing in public—but it would at least do him good to learn how to be a wallflower in this place without her.

And, you know: Maybe she’d give him a bit of a show.

Faith made her way downstairs, brushing past people who either paid her no mind or stopped to ogle her. She was wearing dark red pants that hung low on her hips and a faux-leather crop-top that had stitching in the back. Dark eyeshadow and dark red lipstick completed the look. She knew she looked more than a bit slutty, and she was 100% OK with that.

She made her way out into the middle of the dancefloor where she knew Giles could see her from his vantage point. Then, she began to move.

Faith loved dancing. She loved letting her hips rock to a beat, loved the feeling of bodies milling around her all in the same trance. It was the only thing that really quieted her mind and put her demons to rest, other than training and Slaying. It was almost like meditation; better than therapy.

A long time ago—another lifetime it seemed— Faith had heard herself described as a “physical person” by one of the Scoobies. She wouldn’t deny it; it held an implication that she wasn’t very smart, which she could take issue with, but wasn’t really worth it. She knew herself: given the choice to read or spar, she would take sparing any day.

It was one of the reasons she was so surprised this thing with Giles had worked out.

It wasn’t like she expected it to go down in flames—she had matured enough to not go ballistic over domestic issues and Giles was more than enough adult for both of them. But she had kind of expected it to naturally disintegrate. She had expected him to quickly grow tired of her, to grow annoyed with her, and to do a bad job of hiding both things. She had expected to be annoyed with _him,_ for being too stuffy or overbearing or a stick in the mud.

And she had expected him to eventually tell her that he was going back to Buffy. That he didn’t need her anymore because Buffy had welcomed him back into the fold.

But it hadn’t turned out that way at all.

For one, they made a good team—a surprisingly good team. He really was the “steed to her steel” or whatever it was he’d said those three (or, was it four, now?) months ago. Mentoring Klara had taught them a lot about their own partnership and had made them realize how well-suited they were to it. What was more, Giles _didn’t_ get tired of her, or annoyed with her; he didn’t badger her about her smoking or ask her what she’d been doing if she was out later than planned. He didn’t tell her what to do. He let her make her own decisions and basically let her be.

Only, she didn’t let _him_ be. She found herself casually wandering into his study in the den late at night, with the pretense of distracting him and making a nuisance of herself but really to just . . . _be_ for a while in his company. She found, weirdly, that she liked talking to him and even just hearing him talk. It was . . . soothing. And he was interesting. _Way_ more interesting than he’d ever led her to believe. And she hadn’t expected to find him so. . . .

Unable to finish the thought, Faith swayed, turning on her heel and looking up towards the balcony as she danced. Giles was there, right where she herself had been standing earlier. He was plainly watching her, the club lights dancing across his face and glasses. He was resting against the balcony with his forearms, the red silo cup between his hands. Damn, the man had nice arms. Faith had admired them on more than one occasion. Even from this distance, she could see that they were well-muscled, that his hands were large but dexterous. She’d seen him handle a sabre and a guitar; she knew what those hands could do.

Faith threw a smirk up at him, holding her hands above her head and gyrating her hips slowly to the beat. She couldn’t tell if Giles’ expression had changed, or even really what his expression was; she did see, though, that the muscle in his jaw had tightened a bit. She lowered her gaze, closing her eyes and continuing to dance.

Faith knew she had daddy issues— a “father complex” is what her shrink in prison had called it, once. A deep distrust of older male figures that was married bizarrely to a desire to please them. It was one of the reasons she’d fallen in with Mayor Wilkins: He was the first guy who had legitimately seemed to care about _her_ , treated her with respect, admired her for her powers and her ruthlessness. The fact that he hadn’t asked her for anything sexual had probably only made her want to please him more. And, even after everything, even though Mayor’s goal was to bring about the end of the world, Faith knew that he had felt something for her. Affection. Enough affection to bring about his own downfall. That was a thought she couldn’t let go of; that someone could love her enough to do what was bad for them.

And, while Faith knew that Giles was probably currently fulfilling her “father complex”, she didn’t have to worry about him losing his head over her. Giles, as he had grudgingly admitted himself, was in love with the one person that Faith could historically never compete with: Buffy. Just because he wasn’t acting on that feeling didn’t mean that there was any chance for Faith to sneak into his affection. There just wasn’t room.

Didn’t mean she couldn’t engage in a little harmless flirting, though. He seemed to like it well enough, or at least tolerate it.

So, she continued to sway to the music, letting her hands run over her own body, swaying her hips, tilting her head, knowing that he could see. Knowing that, between scanning the crowd for their wayward Slayer, he was watching _her_. She smiled to herself, looking around as the song changed and another beat picked up—

And then Faith saw her.

She had no idea when the girl had arrived but, now that Faith spotted her, she was fucking hard to miss. The chick was tall. Like, legendary Amazonian woman tall. She was also beautiful, dark skin gleaming under the club lights and some expertly applied eyeshadow. Her height and her beauty made her appear a bit older than she was—helped, naturally, by her outfit, which was showing ample cleavage, and her five-inch heels. She was near the bar, having what looked like an angry conversation with a man who was even fucking taller. Even from where she was in the middle of the dancefloor, Faith could see that both of their eyes had that glassy look of people who’d been drinking. The guy grabbed her by the arm and she shook him off, and Faith knew a split second before it happened what was coming next—

The guy hit her. Clean backhand swat, the way you’d hit a weak little girl who couldn’t fight back.

Only this chick wasn’t. She was a fucking Slayer.

Faith didn’t have time to look up to see if Giles had twigged. She immediately started shoving people around her, making her way towards the bar.

“Fucking _move!_ ” she shouted, just as she heard the crash of glass.

-

After that, getting the girl out of there was a nightmare.

By the time Faith finally reached the bar, the Slayer—Renee— had punched the guy so hard that he’d completely black out and was lying stone cold on the floor. It was good hit, but the girl was so drunk that the punch had caused her to sway woozily on the spot. One of her boyfriend’s buddies, another gargantuan dude—and seriously, were they in a gang for tall people?— came forward, looking to swing at Renee when, from seemingly out of nowhere, Giles had appeared.

Giles was no match for a Slayer. He was only human, and middle-aged at that. But he was no slouch and, with his training and expertise, more than equal to a tall drunk dude who had probably seen two real fights in his life. Giles deftly grabbed the dude’s arm and wrenched it behind him painfully before shoving the guy to the ground.

(It was pretty hot. But Faith didn’t have time to think about that.)

Shouting ensued. The DJ cut the music. The bartender had called over security and they were fixing to hustle everyone out, rather forcefully. It was only by the grace of Giles, who immediately adopted a reasonable and almost prim air, that he and Faith made it outside without the assistance of the beefy security guard, carrying a staggering Renee between them. Trying to get out of sight of the club (and any onlookers) they made it about half a block down the road before turning into a side street to regroup.

“Fuck off,” the girl slurred, tripping over her heels.

“Believe me, we’d love to,” Faith said. She looked across Renee’s head at Giles. “Where did we park? We need to get her out of here.”

“N-no, fucking get _off_ me—”

“Two blocks over. I’ll run and get the car if you—”

“Yeah, I got her. Just go. Meet us as the next corner.”

“Fuck youuu,” Renee said as Giles gently disentangled himself and jogged off in search of their car. Faith, who was now left with basically all of Renee’s dead weight, huffed.

“Look, just fucking cool it, all right? We’re gonna take you home—hey!” Faith exclaimed, as Renee stumbled, lost a heel, and promptly puked against the side of a building. _Christ, I hope Giles has a barf bag in that rental_ , Faith thought, moving to hold back Renee’s hair as another wave of vomiting hit.

“Mmmblerrmmm,” Renee said between retches.

“I know,” Faith said, less reassuring and more annoyed. “You just get it all out and we’ll get you home—”

“You ladies need help?”

Faith stiffened. She looked up to see a guy, early thirties with blonde hair looking at them curiously. Curiously, but without actual concern.

Faith felt the back of her neck prickle. Fuck. Just what she needed. She grabbed Renee around the waist and hauled her upright. “Keep moving, dude,” Faith shot at him, glancing at the empty street, hoping to see Giles in the rental. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

The guy cocked his head. “Looks to me like two lost little girls,” he said, stepping closer.

Faith tensed. “Yo, I rarely say this, but: I’m really not in the mood, dude.”

She saw a flash of jagged teeth; then, his face changed and, when he blinked next, his eyes were sickly yellow. “But I am.”

It should have been an easy fight. Normally, Faith mano-a-mano with a no-name vamp was a no-contest brawl. She’d gotten good over the years, learned not to play with her food. It was annoying, sure, but it should have been an easy stake and dust.

Except there was Renee.

Renee, who gave a little shriek and dropped like a deadweight when Faith shoved her aside into a pile of rubbish. Faith took her eyes off the girl for like thirty-seconds; thirty seconds while Faith met the blonde vamp in combat, thirty seconds while she started to trounce his ass. . . .

And it would have all been fine if two more vamps hadn’t appeared.

Faith only noticed because Renee gave a muffled, disgruntled sort of “Mmmm!” behind Faith’s back. She turned just as another man stooped towards Renee, grabbing her under the arms and hoisting her up. Another figure was hanging just behind him. In the dim moonlight, Faith could see both of their faces, and they were butt-ugly. Demon ugly.

“Hey!” she shouted aggressively, “Don’t fucking touch—”

But then, the blonde vampire she had been fighting attacked her from behind. She felt the graze of fangs against her neck as his arms gripped her shoulders and, instinctually, she rolled forward just as he began to bite down. She flipped him over her back and he landed hard on the ground. She found her hand immediately going to her waist—and then groaned. Right. Where was she supposed to have hid a stake on this outfit?

A scream rose up at the end of the alley where Renee was, then was immediately muffled. Faith saw that the vampire who had hoisted Renee up was covering her mouth with his hand. He was sniffing her neck experimentally, no doubt discerning that there was a shit-ton of alcohol in Renee’s system. It might help her. It might buy them some time—

Faith stepped forward and, using the blonde vampire as a springboard, leapt at Renee and the other two vamps. The second dude stumbled backwards, startled, while the first dropped Renee (who fell again into the rubbish) in order to meet Faith.

She tackled him to the ground and, not having anything on hand to hit him with, began to punch him repeatedly in the face while her eyes darted around, looking. A chair. A table. A broom. Something she could make a stake out off—

And then, a searing pain in her shoulder as someone attacked her from behind.

Faith heard herself yell incoherently. She curled forward onto the vamp she was straddling as the other dragged inhumanely sharp, jagged nails down her back, splitting the soft flesh there easily. For the first time that night, Faith began to feel a small sense of dread. _Fuck_. She was outnumbered and distracted by Renee and where the fuck was—

As if in answer to an unspoken prayer, there was a sound of demonic anguish from further down the alleyway. When Faith looked up, a cloud of dust was clearing to reveal Giles. He was double-fisting two wooden stakes.

In the dim moonlight, Faith could see his expression. No panic, no fear. Just steely intent. Dangerous.

Without a word, he rushed forward, tossing one of the stakes to her.

She caught it easily and, with a grunt, handstand-flipped herself over so that she was standing on the other side of both vamps, her back to Giles. She then lunged forward, her stake finding its home in the heart of the standing vamp. As he fell, Faith wrenched out her stake and plunged it into the chest of the one on the ground.

She had never liked the sound of vampires dying. It sounded like a thousand demons all at once, a legion of voices. But she liked the silence that followed.

Now, that silence was broken by Giles’ voice:

“Are you all right?”

Faith turned towards him. His expression was no longer steely, but plainly worried. He looked a little less like Conan the Librarian and more like every-day tweedy Giles, his brows knitted in obvious concern. It was . . . weirdly soothing to have that directed at her.

In response, Faith groaned, wiping a hand on her neck where the grazing bite wound was already closing; it came away wet with her own blood.

“Yeah, no thanks to _her_ ,” Faith replied, shooting dagger eyes in the direction of Renee, who was still slumped over in the garbage.

Giles nodded, his glasses flashing in the moonlight. “And you’re sure you’re all right?”

Faith nodded, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. “Yeah. Let’s get her home.”

Now that Renee was a dead weight and not fighting them, Giles managed to hoist her up by himself, walk her to the curb, and get her into the backseat of the rental car. While he was fussing around, Faith opened the passenger-side door and slid in, being careful to not let her shoulder touch the seat. It was leather, so blood would come off, but still.

After somehow wrestling a seatbelt onto the passed-out Renee, Giles closed the back passenger door and got into the driver’s seat. He produced Renee’s black purse, which he had taken from her, and handed it to Faith, who started pawing through it, looking for a license. As she looked, she heard the faintest sound of hitching breath.

“Your shoulder. . . .”

“It’s fine,” Faith said tersely, finally finding a wallet and getting out the license.

“You can’t see it.”

“I’m sure it looks great,” Faith replied dismissively. “Here.” She handed him the license. “Just drive.”

He did as she bade him. After putting Renee’s address into the car’s GPS, Giles pulled out onto the nearly empty street and navigated towards the main road. The traffic around them picked up significantly, and Faith found the sound of passing cars soothing. She wanted to lean back against the seat and close her eyes, but her shoulder was starting to throb painfully, and she was beginning to think that Giles’ concern over it was maybe a little warranted. To distract herself, Faith dug through Renee’s purse some more and pulled out her phone. Unlocking it, Faith sent herself a text message. After her own phone buzzed, she put Renee’s back.

In the driver’s seat, Giles glanced into the rearview mirror. “Well. I guess our plan of trying to talk sense into her is currently useless.”

“Yeah. Even if she wakes, we’re not getting anything useful outta her til she sobers up.” She leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees. She could smell her own blood and sweat; she wondered if Giles could too.

After about twenty minutes of driving, Giles pulled up to a small, wood-paneled house. None of the lights were on. Faith unbuckled her seatbelt as Giles slowed to a stop.

“Perhaps I should—” he began.

“No,” Faith said firmly. “You’re a dude. It looks weird enough that you helped me drag her out of a club. Her folks don’t need some strange man bringing her home drunk. I’ll handle it. Give—can I borrow your jacket?” she asked, at the last moment changing her “give me” to a request.

Somewhat reluctantly, Giles got out of the car to remove his jacket. He tossed it to Faith over the hood of the car and she caught it; it was much too large for her, but she didn’t fancy bringing Renee to the door with a bloody shoulder or an outfit that could generously by called “skanky”. She raised the jacket and began easing her left arm and shoulder in first; she was immediately caught by the realization that the jacket smelled like Giles. And it wasn’t until just now that she realized she _knew_ what he smelled like.

While Faith slid into his jacket, Giles had opened the back passenger door and was pulling Renee upright. Now covered, Faith went to help him, wincing slightly as she took all of Renee’s weight on her left shoulder and the wound on her right shoulder pulled. She looked over at Giles.

“Wait in the car. I’ll be right back.”

So, stumbling and cursing under her breath, Faith staggered with a barely-awake Renee up to the front door of the house. Steeling herself, she reached up and rang the doorbell.

A sharp-looking elderly woman came to the door. In a rush of words, Faith explained that she was a friend of Renee’s, and Renee had asked her to come pick her up from a party because she wasn’t feeling well. The mystified woman, who identified herself as Renee’s grandmother, allowed Faith into the house. Faith deposited Renee as gently as possible on the couch that stood nearest to the front door, babbling the whole time. The severity on Renee’s grandmother’s face had melted into concern and gratitude. Faith had a sneaking feeling that she was going to save her outrage for when Renee woke up in the morning.

After extricating herself and bidding the grandmother goodnight, Faith dashed back down the drive and yanked open the front passenger door to Giles’ car.

“Sleeping Beauty has been successfully delivered to bed,” Faith announced, sliding the leather jacket off of her shoulders. She lowered herself gently into the seat. “I told her grandma I would call in the morning—maybe after she’s had some ibuprofen and has stopped puking her guts out. That is gonna be one monster hangover.”

Giles waited while she buckled in. “It looked as though you handled that well.”

Faith shrugged—and immediately winced as the motion pulled once again at her shoulder. “Yeah, well, I used to be a delinquent too, remember? Besides, I know how to charm parental figures when I have to. Back to the hotel?” She laid Giles’ jacket across her lap and once again leaned forward to avoid touching her back to the car seat.

Giles frowned. “Yes. That shoulder needs dressing.”

-

It was slightly past midnight when they arrived back at their hotel—and it was a proper hotel this time, not a dingy motel like in Florida or Stuttgart. Faith was really glad to be able to go back to somewhere clean, even if it was a little stale.

They managed to make it back to the hotel room without running into anyone. Once safely inside, Giles immediately began rummaging in his bag for the first aid kit he kept there. “You should change,” he muttered, producing the little red bag with the white cross.

“Giles, it’s probably f—”

“Faith.” He cut her off with just her name, without saying anything more; but there was something about his tone, the authority of it, that made Faith (with some minor grumbling) go to the bathroom and change into her bedclothes: yoga shorts and a black camisole. When she emerged, Giles had turned on the bedside lamps and rolled up his sleeves. He gestured to a space on the bed before him. “Sit.”

Something in her wanted to argue with him on principle. She didn’t take orders from people. She didn’t . . . but fuck if she wasn’t tired and done with arguing about shit. She sat down where he indicated, turning her back to him. She felt the dip of the bed as he sat down behind her, one leg crossed beneath him, one foot planted on the floor. For some reason, she could hear her own heartbeat in her ears and the room felt unnervingly quiet.

She nearly jumped at the first touch of his hands on her back.

He had never patched her up before. In the four-ish months they had been living and working together, they hadn’t come up against anything more dangerous than a brace of vampires, which Faith was normally able to handle without issue. She hadn’t sustained any serious injuries since they’d been working together; but she’d seen Giles attend to the wounded before. She knew he was practiced.

His hands were gentle, light at first. He cleaned the edges of the wound with a soft, damp cloth, pausing every time she winced or hissed, murmuring low apologies. While the hand with the cloth dabbed around the wound, his other came to rest lightly on her none-injured shoulder, fingertips only, as if to brace himself. Faith felt the warm feeling begin again in her belly, and she crossed her arms over her stomach.

“Mm,” Giles murmured thoughtfully. “This is relatively deep, but I don’t think you need stitches.”

“Cool,” Faith hear herself reply.

He then set about drying the skin surrounding the wound so that he could apply bandages, leaving the open gash itself damp. He opened a sterile packet and pulled out a bandage, applying it with surgical tape.

“There,” Giles said once he was done. “Your Slayer enhancements should allow it to heal relatively quickly, but you’ll still need to be careful not to reopen it. I suggest sleeping on your stomach tonight.”

“Yeah,” Faith replied distractedly. Though he had finished bandaging her, one of Giles’ hands still rested lightly on her back, just the lightest touch of fingertips.

She shivered.

Faith couldn’t be sure if he felt it or if it was something completely mundane that made him get up and begin putting away the first aid kit. In any case, the moment was gone. The warm feeling in her stomach had dissipated into an almost uncomfortable tingle, like a barely-there itch, and she was incredibly, nonsensically tired.

As Giles set about getting ready for bed, Faith simply pulled back the covers on her bed and crawled beneath them. She did as Giles’ suggested, laying on her stomach, her face turned towards his bed. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of him moving about, brushing his teeth, changing clothes, and, finally, getting into his own bed a few feet from her. 

She didn’t know if she fell asleep first or Giles; but, when she did fall asleep, it was to the sound of his steady, quiet breathing.


	2. Predawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I enjoy both kudos and reviews :)

_Faith could see them. They were on the other side of the lawn, far enough away that she should only be able to tell who they were, but for some reason she could also see their faces up close. They had their own picnic blanket and a woven basket and their faces were brilliant with sunshine. They laughed and smiled as if they could only see each other. Buffy’s blonde hair caught like a halo in the sun. Giles lounged, sitting with his long legs out, leaning back on his hands. They both looked so carefree. So happy._

_Faith looked down, then at her own picnic blanket. She had expected to find herself sitting across from Mayor Wilkins—that’s how this dream always went—but she was alone. And her picnic blanket was . . . wrong. As she watched, the edges of the blanket went black, curled, shriveled. She noticed then that the picnic food was also rotting before her eyes, sandwiches growing mold, grapes disintegrating, flies swarming. Frantically, she looked over to where Buffy and Giles were sitting, but they were completely ignoring her, and the smell of rot filled her nose. She stood up—_

_And sat back down again immediately. She was in the Sunnydale library. It didn’t smell like mold, just like old books. She looked down and saw that she was wearing and oversized button up shirt and suspenders clipped to tan trousers. She was sat at the large desk in the library, and there was a book open in front of her, the pages flipping themselves. She caught a glimpse of a portrait of Klara, then another of Renee—_

_“You aren’t paying attention,” Giles told her coldly. He swung a yardstick and smacked it hard on the wooden table. “Pay attention!”_

_Faith looked down. The pages of the book had stopped turning and it was open to one page in particular. Buffy, stylized in sepia, gazed up at Faith from the page, her eyes sorrowful, then hard and angry. Her pretty mouth opened in a snarl—_

_Faith pushed herself back from the table forcefully, getting up. She ran up the stairs of the library to the second level and disappeared behind the stacks. She could hear the sound of footsteps behind her and knew that Giles was following. She raced the length of two bookshelves, turning the corner at the end—_

_And found herself in a cemetery, standing under the canopy of an old oak tree. She noticed it was cold, and that she was wearing only her scanty clubbing clothes. She shivered._

_Giles stepped up beside her, in full Tweed Mode TM. Faith turned to look up at him. His green eyes looked grey in the darkness, and he opened his mouth to speak—_

_An arrow whizzed past Faith, ruffling her hair before sticking firmly into the bark of the tree. Faith turned back to see a figure approaching in the darkness, walking towards them purposefully. As the person drew closer, Faith realized it was Buffy, dressed all in black, reloading a crossbow._

_Without thinking, Faith grabbed a handful of tweed jacket and threw herself and Giles both to the ground. They rolled together down the grassy hill, locked together by Faith’s grip. They seemed to fall forever until they rolled to an abrupt stop, Faith landing sprawled on top of Giles. She was breathing hard and her lungs felt like ice. She looked up, but Buffy was nowhere in sight—_

_And then, her world turned again as Giles flipped them over, as if to shield her with his body. Faith felt the grass press into her back, the cold dew against her skin and it made her shiver again. “Giles—”_

_Her words died in her throat as she felt his warm breath on her neck, his lips behind her ear. And suddenly, he was kissing her hard, almost viciously, and Faith completely forgot her fear, completely forgot about Buffy. She kissed him back hungrily, one her hands snaking to grip the hair at the nape of his neck. Cold, wet grass pressed into the skin of her lower back but the rest of her body felt hot, too hot for how cold the night was. She felt and heard Giles groan and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing up into him just as he bent down to bite her earlobe and she could feel him hard beneath his trousers and, fuck, she wanted—_

Faith’s eyes flashed open.

She waited for her breathing to even out as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. She didn’t know what time it was, but she could tell it was too goddamn early: the chink in the curtain was letting through light that was dim and blue and it was otherwise pitch black. She shifted a little, and felt her shoulder pull, reminding her of the wound there. She blinked against the darkness, and could just make out the shape of Giles in the other bed. His back was turned to her but she could still see the steady rise and fall of his chest, indicative of deep sleep.

Faith tore her eyes away. She didn’t want to look at him. She was too keyed up to go back to sleep. She felt antsy, almost anxious and her fingers itched for a smoke.

So, moving around quietly in the darkness, Faith slipped out of bed and put on a hoodie, tennis shoes. She grabbed her pack of smokes and lighter from where she’d left them on top of the mini-fridge, slipped her room key into the pocket of her sweats, and all-but-silently let herself out the door.

This was technically a no-smoking joint; earlier, she’d had to stand on the sidewalk outside the hotel like a freakin’ leper as people passed by. She didn’t really fancy going down seven floors and standing on the street at whatever-the-fuck-o’clock just to smoke.

Faith wandered over to the elevator, considering. This was a one of the nicer hotels they’d stayed at, the kind that had a “gym” on the second floor. Faith had checked it out briefly: nothing more than a treadmill, an elliptical, a few pulley systems, and dumb bells that only went up to forty. But, she’d also seen that it opened up onto a weird courtyard of sorts; Faith could see it from her and Giles’ window if she looked directly downward. It looked like it had some sad shrubbery and a few crappy chairs. She figured it was technically outside and, at whatever hour it currently was, she was unlikely to be harassed.

Faith entered the elevator and punched 2. When the door opened again, she padded quietly down the empty hall to the gym; it was totally empty, not even an early-morning warrior to speak of. Faith walked past the machines and went to the glass doors at the back. Up close, the courtyard didn’t look any nicer: cramped and unkempt, ringed in by ugly metal railing. Honestly, it was more like a patio, especially given the overhang supported by stone beams. Whatever. She wasn’t looking for a scenic place to brood.

Faith opened the door and the night air rushed to meet her, chilly and wet. It smelled like it had rained and, sure enough, the metal chairs were all dotted with water, even the ones under the overhang. Faith picked the one facing the glass gym doors (so she could see if she was about to get yelled at), bunching up the sleeve of her sweater and wiping off the seat of one before sitting down.

She pulled a cigarette out of her pack, but hesitated lighting up. It was cloudy out, but the moon was showing through a portion of clouds, giving a spooky silhouette. It reminded her a bit of her dream, the part in the graveyard. 

Faith rolled the cigarette lightly between her forefinger and thumb, thinking. These days, it was unusual for her to have non-prophetic dreams. When she did dream, it was mainly of bizarre shit— like big, Arnold-Schwarzenegger-y vampires in yellow tutus performing _The Nutcracker_. This dream . . . it felt more akin to the nightmares she used to have.

Faith chewed her lip, listening to the faint sounds of the city around her. Seeing Buffy like that, even if it had been a dream . . . she fucking hated it. Anytime she saw Buffy, real or imagined, it made something ugly twist in Faith’s gut, almost like the memory of the dagger Buffy had plunged there so many years ago. The disdain in Buffy’s expression, the open dislike, maybe even hatred . . . well, Faith couldn’t pretend it wasn’t well-earned. Didn’t mean she had to like it.

Truth was, Buffy always reminded Faith of the worst parts of herself, of the person she had been, the person she’s been running from all these years. Hence her decision to stay away from Buffy and the Scoobies after the collapse of Sunnydale; when Buffy headed off to Scotland Faith steered well clear. She set up shop with Robin and the Baby Slayers in Cleveland, and that was gonna be the end of that.

Which really left one to wonder _why_ Faith was shacking up with Buffy’s former Watcher. Or why she was having weird nightmare-cum-sex dreams with him as a guest star.

Faith idly flicked her lighter, the images and feeling of the dream floating back to her. She could still feel the curl of desire in her, hot and needy. She had a definite jones. If she were at home—at Giles’ home in the UK—she would have just gone out and found herself a companion for the evening. An anonymous fuck was easy enough to come by. But they were working, and she hadn’t gotten laid since they arrived in the States—which was bullshit, since she was pretty sure Giles had made time with that witch Ursula who had set up their teleportation point in Maine. . . .

Anyway. She was horny. Her subconscious mind was probably just latching onto the one person in proximity with a dick. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes. Or that she had thought about it before.

Faith blew out a harsh sigh, pinching the cigarette and unintentionally bending it out of shape. Truth be told, she had been half-heartedly nursing the impulse ever since Giles first tracked her down in Cleveland, all those months ago. It was an idle, “I could if I wanted to” kind of fantasy that she occasionally played with during moments like this, when she was in a mood, having a smoke, thinking. There was a time in life when making a serious pass at Giles would have been a forgone conclusion. Anyway, it seemed like a very ‘Faith’ thing to do: Fuck Buffy’s Watcher. Maybe for the fun of it. Maybe just to spite the Queen B. Show Buffy what she was missing out on.

She wasn’t sure that Giles would go for it, though. For one, there was their working relationship to consider; Faith’s associations with men didn’t tend to survive sex unscathed. Giles seemed to like their current business and living arrangement just as much as she did, so no reason to burn that bridge. And then, of course, there was Buffy.

Giles had admitted to Faith several months ago that the reason he had left Buffy was because he’d fallen in love with her. He hadn’t said any more than that, and Faith didn’t push. She didn’t need to. She’d seen it all before, in Xander, in Angel, in Riley, in Spike. Holding a torch for Buffy Summers meant your arm was likely to fall off from waiting. Besides: No man waiting around for Buffy Summers would ever look at Faith as more than a cheap fuck.

Faith knew she was just lucky that Giles was a better man than that. Even if it would be a pleasant way to pass the time.

Thoughtlessly, Faith brought up the hand holding the cigarette to her mouth. She touched her bottom lip with her middle and ring finger, gently pulling the skin.

She must have been sitting out there for a while because the moon was fading and the sky was beginning to lighten when Giles appeared.

Faith started badly when the glass door of the gym opened. She quickly jerked her hand away from her mouth and looked up at the figure in the doorway.

Giles stood there, dressed still in the grey sweater and soft joggers he’d worn to bed. He had shoved his feet into boots but carelessly, the laces undone. He looked sleep-rumpled, his hair a mess, glasses slightly crooked as if he had literally just rolled out of bed without a care. It wasn’t exactly a _good_ look for him but it was . . . weirdly endearing.

Faith cleared her throat.

“What’s poppin.”

It wasn’t really a question, more of a greeting. Giles looked down at her, taking a moment to adjust his glasses. His expression was mostly sleepy, but also slightly worried. It seemed, for a moment, that he was going to say something along the lines of “I just wanted to check on you” or “are you all right”— but Faith saw the moment he decided against it.

“You’ve been out here a while,” he remarked simply, stepping outside fully and closing the door behind him.

“Yeah, just having a smoke. And thinking.”

She saw him eye the bent and unlit cigarette in her hand. He raised an eyebrow.

“Thinking about?”

She wasn’t a good liar—never had been, and she had learned that the hard way. Giles wouldn’t call her out, but he would know immediately if she was straight fibbing. So, she struggled for something that had a lick of truth in it:

“The past. My past. Just . . . remembering what it felt like to be young and wild. That girl, Renee . . . she reminded me a lot of me. I mean, they kinda all do, in some way. But Renee . . . I remember feeling the kind of . . . _recklessness_ that she has.”

Faith didn’t look at him as she stumbled through that response. Instead, her eyes had landed upon an empty flowerpot beside her which, when she craned her neck to look, she saw was full of cigarette buds. She tossed her bent cigarette and took her pack out of her pocket. 

Giles walked over until he was a few feet from her, then leaned back against the stone wall of the building. He had shoved his hands into the pockets of his pajamas.

“Tell me about it.”

Faith shifted. “What’s to tell? It was exciting, I guess. A high by itself, feeling that powerful and untouchable. Frustrating, too. You feel like you could have the world at your fingertips, if only it would give you a chance. If _people_ would give you a chance.”

She was rambling a bit—more than she thought she would. She chanced a glance up Giles: His expression was neutral, non-judgmental, maybe even a little curious. So, the rambling was working. Finally placing the cigarette in her mouth, Faith flicked her lighter against the tip. She breathed in smoke, sweet and acrid.

“And, when they don’t, it makes the reckless feeling worse,” she said, exhaling smoke. “You start acting out.”

“Like Renee.”

“Yeah, like Renee. Although, she’s got a pretty mild case. It’s good we found her now; a year, two years, and she coulda been another me.” She paused, looking up at Giles intently before taking another drag of her cigarette. “She’s gonna need someone good to guide her.”

Giles nodded slowly. “There are several factions of new Watchers in the States. I’ve already called a few up who would be willing to take her on.”

“I hope they’re up to it. Teaching a rebellious teenager ain’t no joke, especially when they’ve got superpowers.”

“You’re telling me.”

Faith quirked her eyebrow at him and curled her lip. “As long as her Watcher ain’t anything like Princess Margaret.”

His brows crinkled in confusion. “Who?”

“Wesley.”

“Ah.”

Somewhere, a street over, Faith heard the rumble of cars, a horn honking. She took a drag of her cigarette, thinking that she could kill the conversation right now; Giles would let her. He knew she didn’t typically invite these kind of confidences, and he had never pushed her to. He wasn’t pushing her now, just watching with a quiet kind of intensity that was so focused it felt cool and remote. At the same time, it made her skin prickle. It made her burn.

She took a deep breath.

“You know . . . right before Angel took me in, I was tearing up LA. Causing mayhem. Working for those crocks Wolfram & Hart. They asked me to kill Angel and I was game, but I wanted some fun first. So, I took Wesley hostage. He was working with Angel at the time. I had it in my head that he did me dirty—which, he kinda did. Figured I would get a little of my own back. . . . Anyway, me, being me, I tortured him. . . .” she trailed off for a moment, taking a drag of her cigarette. Her fingers were shaking. “You know, I think about those times a lot—when I hurt people. I think about how it felt like nothing at all while I was doing it. No stain on my conscience, no empathy for their pain. I don’t know if it actually felt good to me or if I just convinced myself that it felt good. But I know I could be back there in a minute. I feel bad for what I done now, but it would be easy to go back.”

And it would be, no bullshit. She knew the itch she sometimes got in her fingers wasn’t for a smoke. It was to hurt something. To hurt someone. To destroy something just so that she could make the noise in her head stop.

“I almost miss it,” she admitted, her voice so quiet the cold air nearly stole it from her. “Hurting people. Being bad.”

She wanted Giles to say something. Say anything. But he remained damnably silent, letting her pace herself through whatever torture this was. He was probably listening to all this thinking that she was a fool or, worse, a fucking monster. _Goddamnit._ Faith took an angry drag of her cigarette, staring at her shoes. When Giles said nothing, she continued, her voice sounding scratchier than before.

“I asked him—Wesley—if he thought we would be there if _you_ had been my Watcher instead of him. Whether it would be _you_ I had tied to a chair, bleeding.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You think I would have handled you better?”

He’d been keeping such a resolute silence that the question surprised her. She jerked her head up to look at him—and was relieved, _way_ more relieved than she should have been, to see something other than disgust on his face. In fact, he didn’t seem perturbed at all: just attentive. Understanding, even.

It was almost more unsettling than the revulsion she’d been expecting.

“Maybe,” she answered finally. “I don’t know. I just know that Wesley was pure as the driven fucking snow when he met me. You—you’d seen some shit. You put on a good show of being proper prim and English just like Wesley, but even I could see that you were hiding something. I dunno what, but the Scoobies told me it was dark-spooky. That you don’t like to talk about it.”

Giles hadn’t exactly been moving much before, but Faith saw now that he had gone incredibly still. His expression, too, had shuttered. Faith took another drag of her cigarette, then licked at her dry lips. She noticed how his gaze flickered down briefly, then back to her eyes. How they narrowed, just slightly.

“Sometimes, you got a dangerous look about you,” she told him. “Real still. Real quiet. You had that kinda look when I tried to tell you that Buffy killed that guy—the Mayor’s assistant. I didn’t realize it then; I thought I had you fooled, you looked so serious and heartbroken.”

His expression softened a little at that. “I was,” he replied. “I was heartbroken for you.”

The knowledge of that made Faith’s insides clench. “Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. I never woulda had you tied to that chair because you saw me comin’, G. You saw me coming a mile away.”

“I didn’t, though,” Giles replied. “If I had, I would have intervened sooner. Helped you more. But I didn’t see you fully. I was too preoccupied with. . . .”

“Buffy.”

She watch the muscle in his jaw flex.

“Yes.”

Another long silence fell between them. Tearing her eyes away, Faith stubbed out her cigarette on the metal arm of the chair, listening to it sizzle as it came in touch with a droplet of water. She threw the butt in the flowerpot. Then when the silence continued, she idly began to pick at the sticker on her plastic lighter. _Buffy_. It always circled back to Buffy.

Well, it should, shouldn’t it? Buffy was a big fucking well of gravity that Faith and Giles and the whole rest of the world, whether they knew it or not, revolved around. Not only _The_ Slayer, but the Chosen one. The one about whom all the prophecies were told. The golden girl. The hero.

Faith fought back a snarl. When she had first gotten her powers, more than half a decade ago, she thought she’d hit the jackpot. For once, her rotten fucking life had something good happen in it: she turned out to be a superhero. She first fought her deadbeat abusive boyfriend. Then she fought demons, vampires, other scum. Didn’t matter that both her parents were drunks and couldn’t remember her fucking name sometimes, let alone remember to hit her when she acted out. Didn’t matter that no one had ever thought she was worth anything. She finally _was_ worth something. She was a Slayer.

But she wasn’t the only one. And that was what bit, wasn’t it? It was supposed to be one girl in all the world. It was supposed to be Faith. But Buffy was still around. Buffy was the one about whom everyone flocked, the one that was regarded as the _real_ Slayer. Faith was just a fucking accident. A sideshow. A spare.

And she’d spent her time being angry about that. A long fucking time. It had taken her years and a good bit of jail time to finally get over that. _Boo-hoo. So what. Move the fuck on._ She thought she had. She thought she’d gotten better.

But the last time she’d seen Buffy . . . fuck, Faith remembered what it felt like to have her hands around Buffy’s throat, not to hurt her at first, but to get her to just _shut up._ To fucking _listen._ But it hadn’t stopped there. Faith remembered how good it felt to hold Buffy under water, to watch the fear in her eyes as she struggled not to drown. . . .

When Buffy wasn’t around, Faith was a hero. Otherwise, she was nothing.

Even with Giles. Giles, who actually respected Faith, who professed to trust her, who even occasionally praised her. Giles, who had agreed to work with her, to live with her, to watch shitty TV with her, to share meals with her and laugh at her lewd jokes and come-ons. Giles, who was here with _Faith_ and not with Buffy. Faith knew she was still nothing in comparison. Giles was here because he was running from Buffy— for her own good and maybe for his own good, and being with Faith was the furthest he could possibly get from Buffy’s good graces.

Angrily, Faith flicked at the lighter. The flame that lit briefly danced in the reflection of Giles’ glasses. The sky around them was now a dark mauve, fading into a dirty pink. It gave the entire patio a strange glow, bathed them both in liminal light.

Faith chewed on her lip, thinking. There was something bothering her—something that had _been_ bothering her for almost several months now, ever since she and Giles had that first conversation in the Grafton Arms. Ever since he had told her. . . . 

“When did you, you know, _know?”_

It was a blunt and almost queer way to break the silence. The question was obtuse; strangely, Giles didn’t seem to need any clarification.

He shifted, repositioning himself against the wall. “I . . . I think I realized it during the days leading up to the battle at the Hellmouth.”

Faith raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Really? I thought you were kinda pissed at Buffy then.”

“I was. That was part of it.”

“What did it feel like?”

That question surprised Giles too; he tilted his head and slowly removed his glasses. He carefully cleaned them with the hem of his sweater.

“Why do you want to know?”

Faith shrugged. She honestly had no fucking clue. She just . . . had this itch. Curiosity.

“I never been in love before. I got no point of reference.”

Giles nodded, as if that made sense. He still did not put his glasses back on. Something about that—his face without them—made him seem different. More vulnerable somehow. She actually didn’t know if he was dead blind without them, or if he could still see her, just fuzzy outlines of mouth and nose and eyes.

But it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t looking at her anymore; he was directing his eyes to the horizon, which had begun to turn slightly orange.

“It felt like a black hole had opened up inside me and was swallowing me whole,” he said after a moment. “It felt like I was flying and falling all at once. It was beautiful, and it was terrible. And it made me feel absolutely bloody dangerous.”

“Why?”

He blinked, turning his face towards her. He tilted his head downward, bringing his glasses back up to his face and pushing them up his nose. It was an act of sorts, Faith realized. Donning armor. Protection.

Except when he answered, it didn’t sound like he was protecting himself from anything:

“Because once I realized that I loved her—once I finally put words to it— I knew, without a doubt, that I would do anything—and I mean _anything_ —to protect her. And that scared me.”

She could hear the fear in his voice too. The power of it. “That sounds fucking awful,” she said, and immediately wanted to take it back because, shit, she was no good at this; but Giles didn’t seem offended. He merely nodded once, slowly. 

“It was. It is.”

At the edge of the patio, hidden in one of the unkempt bushes that lined it, a bird started chirping. Faith shifted in her metal chair as Giles took a moment to look away from her and off into the distance, where the orange on the horizon was growing by the second.

“Do you think it’ll ever go away?”

When he turned his gaze back to her, it was a strange combination of hard and tortured. Resolved, but pained. “With time. Love, like anything else, cannot continue to thrive if left unnourished—even for a stubborn kind of love. It isn’t impossible to move on, but it is a process. An active process, in most cases. Sometimes moving on involves falling in love with another person; sometimes, it simply means letting go.” He cleared his throat. “In my case at least, I am hopeful that, with time, my feelings will become different. More manageable.”

An image suddenly flashed through Faith’s mind and, before she knew what she was doing, she blurted:

“You mean, someday you might _not_ want to fuck her.”

Wow, that had been a _shitty_ thing to say. Giles looked startled for a moment and then gave such a scowl that, if Faith were anyone else, she would have been absolutely cowed. He looked nearly menacing.

“Thank you, that was precisely the most vulgar thing you could have said.”

Faith, shrugging off the iciness of his reply, pulled another cigarette from her pack. She lit up quickly this time, letting him stew in his own . . . _whatever_ while she took her first pull. She had riled him up a little; and it was weird, but she liked it. She liked pushing his buttons, getting under his skin.

“So, you don’t want to fuck her.”

His dark expression remained, but it became wearier. “I don’t want that kind of relationship with her.”

It was _not_ what Faith had expected him to say. She paused with her cigarette halfway to her mouth, her eyebrows crinkling together in confusion. “I don’t get it.”

“I am at my best and most useful to her when I am able to play my original role: that of a guardian and advisor. I don't want a romantic relationship with Buffy because I don't think it would be good— for her, or me, or anyone else." He pressed his lips together. "More to the point . . . I watched her grow up, Faith. She’s like a daughter to me. However else I feel, I still _love_ her like a daughter.”

“That’s kinda—”

“Fucked up? I know. Which is _why_ I have removed myself from the situation until . . . until I get myself sorted.” Giles gave an aggravated half-sight and removed his glasses again, rubbing at his eyes. “To fall _in_ love is involuntary. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be wonderful and liberating and exciting; it can also be devastating, unmooring, and terribly inappropriate. But to love someone—to do so daily, in the face of their flaws and mistakes and rages— to love someone is a conscious decision. It’s that power of choice that I am attempting to regain by staying away—for now. I need the distance. Being close to her was simply too . . . confusing.”

Faith considered that. She got the feeling that, as open and honest as Giles was being right now, there was also a caginess to his response. She exhaled a puff of smoke through her nose and, on a whim, offered up the cigarette to Giles. “So you’re never gonna talk to her about it?”

Giles seemed to deliberate for a moment. Then, he pushed himself away from the wall and stepped toward her; he took the cigarette from her, their fingers brushing briefly. “No.”

Faith withdrew her hand, maybe faster than was necessary, and stuffed it into her hoodie. “Why not?”

Giles brought the cigarette to his lips. Faith had never seen him smoke before, but he did so with the ease of someone who used to regularly indulge. She watched his mouth, his fingers, the smoke curling out of his nostrils.

“It would be pointless,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Partially because I have already determined not to act upon it, partially because I suspect that she already knows. It makes things rather complicated.” He handed the cigarette back to her; Faith took it from him carefully, making sure not to touch him. She took a drag.

“That why she’s pissed at you?”

“No, she’s angry with me for hiding Genevieve from her and then for leaving—and for taking up with you.”

“Betrayed, then.” She offered the cigarette back up to him; this time, he was careful to take it without touching her.

“Perhaps.”

Faith was quiet for a moment, watching Giles smoke. Processing. They hadn’t really talked about Giles’ relationship with Buffy, or his feelings about her, not since that first conversation in the Grafton Arms all those months ago. Prior to this conversation, Faith had made her own assumptions about why Giles was staying away. She had been expecting some reason like “I’m too old for her” or “Buffy would never think of me that way”. But Giles was making a choice that wasn’t based on either his age or a lack of feelings on Buffy’s part. He was . . . withholding. There was something that he wasn’t telling her, or . . . oh. _Duh_.

“Something happened between you, didn’t it?”

Giles’ eyes flicked up to meet her as he drew from the cigarette. He exhaled tightly.

“I don’t want to talk about it, but yes—although it’s not what you think.”

A soft scoff escaped Faith. “You don’t know what I think.”

Before he could reply, Faith rose from her chair and stepped directly into Giles’ space. He was nearly a foot taller than her, and Faith looked up at him from beneath her dark lashes. He stared back at her, green eyes slightly wide but gaze steady; he didn’t move, didn’t pull away. Just waited. They were standing so close that their breath mingled in the cool morning air, that she could feel the heat of his body. They had never been this close to each other before, never experienced this kind of tension. It was electrifying. The only thing that kept them apart was his hand, the one holding the cigarette, which hovered almost protectively around his sternum.

Faith licked her lips and, carefully, lifted her hand to place it gently on his. She saw the instant that Giles’ eyes dilated and his breathing hitched.

And she knew, in that moment, exactly what he would taste like. How it would feel to kiss him.

She closed her fingers around the cigarette and withdrew it from his grasp. She stepped back, breaking the spell between them.

“That’s what happened.”

Giles was quiet. Faith thought for a moment that he looked incredibly angry, angry enough to yell at her—but the emotion was gone as soon as she’d registered it, fading into something more tumultuous, more withdrawn. His mouth remained a thin tight line as Faith eased herself back into the metal chair. She could hear her own heart pounding in her ears and inhaled deeply through her nose. Shit.

“Doesn’t sound like it’s totally one-sided, G,” she said after a minute.

“I’ve told you: I don’t want that kind of relationship with her,” he replied, and she could hear the anger in his voice, contained but present. He shifted, restless. “It’s too bloody cold out. I’m heading back inside.”

He turned heel then and opened the doors to the little gym, disappearing through them. Faith watched him go without comment; she stubbed the cigarette out on the arm of the chair and tossed the butt into the flowerpot.

She knew she should feel bad for doing that. For putting him on the spot that way. For manipulating him. Maybe she did feel a little guilty. She had made passes at him before but they had all been in jest, meant to relieve tension or distract him by making him laugh. What she had done just now was almost worse than making a serious pass at him; she had done it to prove a point. And it had worked.

And, Faith thought with grim satisfaction, it had _really_ pissed him off. At least, she had never seen Giles this wound up before. She wondered if he was angry at her for doing it, or if he was angry at himself for being caught off guard enough to be manipulated, even if only for a second. Knowing Giles, likely the latter, but also maybe a bit of both.

Well, as far as Faith was concerned, he had every right to be angry at her. It was a shitty thing to do; it also crossed a line that she had been carefully toeing for months. She had basically taken advantage of him—even though she was pretty sure Giles would have put a stop to it going any farther. She had found the chink in his emotional armor and sunk her arrow straight through.

Why, though? Why the fuck should Faith care how Giles felt about Buffy? Why should she want to know what happened—or didn’t happen—between them? Maybe she was just a Nosy Fucking Parker. Maybe she was just having a lapse, going back to her old destructive tendencies and taking it out on Giles.

Maybe she wanted to understand him better so that, when he eventually left her, it wouldn’t be such a surprise.

Faith stayed out there for a while longer. The sounds of the city began to crescendo into the typical buzz and shout of people going about their mornings. The sky turned light blue fading into yellow and orange where the sun was peaking over the horizon. Morning arrived, bright and unrelenting. 

Reluctantly, Faith got up from her chair. No point in sitting out here any longer. They had a job to do.


	3. True Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and kudos are most welcome!

When Faith slide her keycard in the door of their hotel room and opened it with a faint click, she was greeted by warm, damp air and the sound of the shower running. It stopped almost as soon as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

Faith shuffled over to the queen bed nearest the door, grabbing her duffle bag off the floor and throwing it onto the bed. She rummaged through it and pulled out clean clothes just as the door to the bathroom opened and Giles stepped out. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved red shirt, feet bare, his skin still glistening a little from the shower. Though he looked more refreshed than he had outside several minutes ago, he still had an air of moodiness about him. He gave her a cursory nod of acknowledgement and a wide berth as she brushed past him towards the recently vacated shower.

“Hope you didn’t hog all the hot water,” Faith said in passing.

“It’s a hotel. They have plenty to go around.”

Faith shut the door behind her. The bathroom was humid from Giles’ shower and the mirror was too fogged to see anything beyond the fuzzy outlines of her own face. Sighing, Faith stripped out of her sweatpants and underwear, and then carefully peeled off her hoodie, tank top, and bra, trying not to jostle the bandage on her back too much.

The spray of the shower was a welcome relief. Strange, how a little hot water could make her relax, even if only a smidge. She let the spray wash her face and body and was almost feeling sufficiently distracted by the simple pleasure of a warm shower when a sharp pain emanated from her back.

She bit back a hiss, turning so that her back was not directly under the water. Fuck. With her opposite arm, she reached to feel at her shoulder; the bandage there had come loose, and it felt like she had gotten some shampoo in the wound. Gritting her teeth, Faith turned, putting her shoulder under the spray of water, hoping to get the soap out. She gasped as the hot water sluiced down her shoulder, into the wound. Fuck, that hurt.

She carefully rinsed the rest of the shampoo from her hair, sweeping it over her non-injured shoulder. She finished her shower quickly, got out, and dried herself off with one of those scratchy white towels that seemed to be ubiquitous in hotels. She pulled on underwear, jeans, and was about to pull a sports bra over her head when her shoulder twinged again. She breathed in sharply through her nose. Damn.

She wondered if Giles had heard her gasp, or if it had been swallowed up by the running water. She didn’t really want to call for Giles; he was still pissed at her, and probably wouldn’t welcome the prospect of having to be near to her so soon. Or touch her.

But she couldn’t exactly reach her shoulder herself to see what the damage was. She was flexible, but not _that_ flexible.

Faith picked up the towel she had been using and saw that there were a few splotches of bright, bloody pink on it. Great. She wrapped it carefully around her torso, making up her mind.

“Hey, Giles.”

She didn’t quite shout, but she rose her voice enough that he would be able to plainly hear her through the door. She heard the sound of shuffling feet, then his voice through the door:

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, just . . . could you take a look at my shoulder?” She gripped the towel around her torso, adding as an afterthought: “I’m decent.”

There was a pause. Then, the door opened, bringing with it Giles and a rush of cold air. She fought back a shiver and was thankful when he closed the door behind him.

She suddenly realized how small of a space they were in, and how she was literally only wearing a fucking towel around her chest. It was . . . strangely intimate. Vulnerable. She flicked her gaze up at his face and then immediately back down again.

“I, uh, think I pulled the bandage.”

She turned her back to him and that, too, felt extremely vulnerable. She held her breath as he examined the bandage perfunctorily.

“How we lookin’?” she asked.

“This needs redressing,” he replied. His tone was neutral and clinical, with almost no trace of its previous anger. “Wait here a moment.”

Giles turned and left the bathroom; he returned momentarily with his first-aid kit, once again closing the door behind him. He gestured for Faith to sit, so she perched on the closed toilet while Giles opened his first aid kit on the bathroom counter. She heard him pull out fresh bandages, gauze, iodine, and then run the water to wash his hands.

Wordlessly, he got to his knees behind her, kneeling on the rug on the floor as he gently peeled back the bandage. He made a low hum in his throat.

“It’s already healing, but the wound isn’t quite closed. It looks irritated as well. Did you get soap in it?”

Faith nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ll clean it and rebandage it.”

“Cool,” she said softly. Giles set to work, his movements practiced, like he had done this a thousand times before: he cleaned and dried the edges of the wound, applied a big of iodine (“to minimize chance of infection” he murmured), and made sure that the open wound itself was wet before he went about applying a new bandage.

As he worked, Faith paid attention to his hands. He kept his touches light and quick, less familiar than they had been when he first dressed the wound. It was a professional touch, devoid of unnecessary contact. It was a fucking shame, she thought. She liked his hands. They were large, strong, capable, tender.

She wondered, then, how many times he had done this for Buffy: Patched her up after a fight, used his hands and his skill to clean her wounds, stitch her up, make her whole again. The amount of care and patience and dedication he had given her. 

Giles was nearly finished applying the new bandage when Faith found herself blurting:

“Buffy’s lucky to have someone like you—someone to look out for her. You’re better than all the schmucks she’s dated put together—including Angel, and I owe that guy a lot.”

She didn’t know why, but she found herself blushing. Embarrassed at her ham-handed compliment or the fact that she had said it without thinking. She was glad her back was turned, glad that he couldn’t see her face.

Giles gave a short scoff behind her. “I am a middle-aged, ridiculous, bull-headed man with a past that is checkered, at best. Don’t patronize me.”

His words were harsh, but his tone was mild. Resigned. So reasonable that it made Faith want to strangle him. She also wanted to point out that two of Buffy’s exes had celebrated centennial birthdays and literally murdered a bunch of people—but she let it slide.

“You’re selling yourself short, Giles,” she told him boldly as he finished applying the bandage and stood up.

“I’m being realistic.” She heard him turn back to the first aid bag and zip it closed. He picked it up, tucked it under one arm, and opened the bathroom door. “I’m going downstairs to see if breakfast is edible,” he told her.

Faith nodded faintly, still not turning to look at him “Meet you there.”

He closed the door behind him, giving her some privacy to finish getting dressed. She waited until she heard the door to their hotel room open and close before letting the towel drop from her chest and reaching down to put on her bra and shirt.

Faith exited the bathroom and puttered a bit about the room. She slipped her hoodie back on and then rummaged in her duffel for a brush. She sat on the edge of her bed, brushing the tangles from her wet hair, thinking.

When she and Giles first started working together, she had been very wary of him— not because he was particularly threatening, but because she was wary of everyone. Especially people who treated her with something close to kindness or respect. The fact that Giles was Buffy’s Watcher and . . . whatever had made her even more skittish. Christ, she’d stabbed him with a fucking fork that one time, when he had reached out and touched her arm. . . . She’d recently seen the skin of his upper arm where she’d stabbed him. The tines of the fork had made a neat row of dark red dots that were all but faded. To be honest, they were pretty difficult to notice, what with that strange tattoo of his and the other, larger scars that littered his arms. His arms bore the evidence of a lifetime of battles, great and small. Cooking scars and combat scars intermingled, some small, some large, some shallow, some deep.

He did not speak often of the past. In fact, he didn’t talk about himself much at all. His love of history and ancient texts aside, Giles was the type of person who was rooted firmly in his own present, in making himself the most useful in the now. He was completely devoted to helping others, to living a life of service, and left little room for himself. And the more time Faith spent with him, the less wary she was of him, the more she wanted to know him. She cared about him.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, one that she wasn’t overly familiar with. It scared her, quite frankly. It felt good, and good things didn’t typically last in Faith’s experience. Caring about people tended to backfire in her face, to get her in utterly fucked situations.

Sighing, Faith dropped the brush on the bed and stood. Time to face the music.

-

When she arrived in the lobby/breakfast area of the hotel, she saw that Giles was already sitting at a table over a steaming plate of eggs, toast, and fruit. He had nicked a paper from somewhere and was perusing it idly, cup of tea halfway to his mouth. He looked up when she entered the breakfast area.

She nodded at him and made a B-line for the breakfast buffet. She wasn’t feeling hungry, so she just grabbed herself a cup of coffee and an apple (ugh, seriously, why did hotels stock nothing but Red Delicious?) and headed over to where Giles sat.

She pulled out the chair across from him and sunk down into it, setting her apple on the table. She blew on her coffee and eyed Giles’ breakfast.

“So, edible?”

Giles shuffled the paper, folding it and setting it down. “It’s passable,” he said. And then, almost like an addendum: “God, I would kill for beans and toast.”

Faith made a face. “That is straight revolting.”

“So says your filthy American palette.”

She was relieved to see a small quirk of his lips as he delivered that paltry insult. It was gone in an instant, replaced again by the somewhat sour expression he had been wearing before—but she saw it, and that was enough to make the tension in her chest ease a little.

They sat in silence for a time. After Giles finished the newspaper he wordlessly handed it to Faith, who took it and looked mindlessly through the local news, sports, and cartoons while she sipped her coffee. Giles ate his breakfast, glancing up to survey the patrons around them. Once, she felt his gaze slide over to her.

She was reminded, then, of mornings spent in Giles’ kitchen when they were between Baby Slayers. Faith would make coffee and Giles would cook breakfast, and they would just sit at the kitchen table, eating, talking, enjoying the morning light that streamed through the large kitchen window. Sometimes it was shop talk, low and relatively seriously; other times, they talked about all the things that normal people talk about: movies, TV shows, politics, sports. She liked to made lewd jokes when he was least expecting it, just to get him to cough and chuckle unexpectedly. She could picture clearly what his smile looked like when lit by the morning sun, how he tried to hide it behind his _Kiss the Librarian_ coffee mug. How the sunlight caught the mark of brown in his left eye, the green and the brown like sea glass. Faith had a sudden strong desire to be home right now. To be in one of those morning moments where things felt so simple and the day hadn’t quite begun.

She also realized that, though she might have more of those days, they were undoubtably numbered.

Giles wouldn’t want to keep doing this forever. There were Big Bads in the world that needed his attention too. He had alluded to as much when they first started working together: “other battles ahead”. And then, of course, there was Buffy, whom he was staying away from for the moment. When it was time to face those Big Bads, though, she was sure that Giles would go where he was needed most: the Slayer stronghold in Scotland, where Buffy reigned supreme.

The thought of that made something creep up in Faith’s throat. She swallowed against it, but it was a hard, unmoving lump.

“Giles.”

He drew his gaze away from the breakfast-goers around them, blinking in slight surprise as he turned his green eyes to her. “Yes?”

Faith licked her lips, looking down into the dregs of her coffee. When she spoke, she was surprised at how rough her voice was:

“When . . . when you decide it’s time to go back to working with Buffy . . . give me a heads up?”

God, she sounded fucking pathetic. What was worse, Faith felt the prickle of something hot and wet at the corners of her eyes. She stared resolutely into her coffee, willing herself to get under control. Fuck fuck fuck fuck—

Across the table, Giles shifted. She could tell she had his full attention. “Faith—”

“Look,” she said, willing her voice to be stronger. _Come on, damnit._ “You said when we started out that this might be a temporary gig. I’m cool with that. I just want a little notice before you call it quits.”

After the silence had stretched for several seconds longer than was comfortable, Faith chanced a glanced up at him. She was surprised at what she saw there; it was an expression she had only seen once before, during the time when she had been in Buffy’s body.

“I’m not going to just get up and leave in the middle of the night, Faith,” he told her seriously. “I promise. You are owed more than that.” He paused, glancing down at his mostly empty plate. “If . . . if _you_ ever grow tired of this arrangement . . . might I ask that you return the favor?”

A bitter laugh escaped Faith. “I’m not going anywhere, G,” she told him. “Other than tracking down rogue Slayers, I got two other things I’m good at: Slaying and hurting people. I’m little better than a two-trick pony. Outside of this gig, the world needs me like another fucking hole in the head. Anyway, I just want enough notice to . . . make arrangements. So I don’t end up doing something stupid.”

The look on Giles’ face was unclear. He seemed conflicted, but she couldn’t read what was warring within him. He pressed his lips together briefly, and then said: 

“I don’t know that I will want to go back to working with Buffy; but, if I do, I will let you know. You have my word.”

Faith nodded. “That’s all I can ask for.” And, then, before he could say anything else, she stood. “I’m gonna refill my coffee and go back to the room. Give Sleeping Beauty a call.”

She took her coffee cup and turned away from him. She didn’t know how she was feeling and, honestly, she was tired to trying to figure that out. She just wanted to work. So, she refilled her coffee, stalked off towards the elevators, and pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. As she punched the elevator button and waited, she went to her recent calls and selected the one at the top of the list.

The phone rang. The elevator opened and Faith stepped inside.

Someone picked up:

_“Hello?”_

“Renee. This is Faith, from last night. How’s the head?”

-

Faith had told Renee to meet her and Giles (whom she simply referred to as “my friend”) at the north side of the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. Giles drove, maneuvering the rental car easily (maybe too easily for the other Chicagoans) through Sunday morning traffic while Faith stared out the window on the passenger’s side. They passed the trip in silence that was neither comfortable nor fraught. They pulled into a parking garage and got out, walking the rest of the way.

It was a cool day, the sky slightly overcast. Faith zipped up her bomber jacket as they walked, shoving her hands into her pockets. Normally, she had to pick up her speed to walk apace with Giles, what with his damn legs being so long, but he was almost ambling this morning, slow and thoughtful.

“I know you spoke with her on the phone, but . . . what makes you so certain she will turn up?” he asked as they approached the fountain. “Not to pass judgement, but she doesn’t seem the type to put much stock in showing gratitude. Or following directions.”

Faith smirked. “ _Numero uno_ , that was super judgy and _numero dos_ : I’m banking that she’s too curious not to come. Wouldn’t you be?”

Giles nodded once. “I suppose.”

They sat down on the stone edge of the fountain. It was nearly 11 AM on a Sunday, but the park was relatively empty today, only a few others walking or milling about.

It wasn’t unusual for them to sit in silence, especially in the last few weeks. They were around each other constantly, and neither felt the need to infuse every moment with conversation; however, as Faith sat beside Giles on the fountain edge, looking out at the every day people, she couldn’t help but want to speak. To clear the air.

She took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. About earlier.”

“Apology accepted.”

Surprised, Faith sat up and turned to look at Giles. He was still scanning the meager crowd.

“That easy, huh?” she asked.

Giles shrugged. “It can be. Forgiveness is always easier when you trust the person you are forgiving. I trust that your intention wasn’t to hurt me.” He did glance at her then.

Faith nodded. “It wasn’t. Hurting you would be like shooting myself in the foot.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s like you said: you trust me,” even as she said them, Faith couldn’t help a little uncertainty creeping into her voice. “I can count on one hand the number of people who have said that to me. Not sure I deserve it, but I appreciate it. Anyway, I don’t want to burn this bridge while I’m still standing on it.”

“You mean while _we’re_ still standing on it.”

Something about that filled her with an incomparable warmth. “Right. We.”

“And, for the record, I am not here with you simply because I am running from Buffy. Perhaps it began that was, but that isn’t the case anymore. I am here because I want to be. I am here because I genuinely believe that we can do some good together. I’m here because I believe in you, and your capacity to change the world for the better.” He paused then, turning his face towards her. His eyes were serious and sincere. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, but . . . you have a great deal to be proud of, Faith. And I feel privileged to be here with you.”

Faith was too stunned to give any immediate reply. Actually, she felt the beginnings of a blush creep up her neck and that was . . . well. She tried to give him a smile, something, but it was too tight of an expression, Faith unable to keep from clenching her jaw. Eventually, she just turned her attention back to the park—

Just then, Faith saw Renee stepping out from behind a crowd of joggers. She looked much different now that she was not in her clubbing clothes, wearing jeans, a soft hoodie, and large hoop earrings. She had the slightly pained look of someone who was both guarded and nursing a hangover. Faith rose from her seat.

“Showtime.”

Faith approached Renee then with a casual wave and a crooked smile. Giles stayed where he was, letting Faith take the lead. Trusting her to.

They wouldn’t do this forever, Faith acknowledged as she greeted Renee. No matter what Giles said, Faith knew that he would eventually go back to Buffy. That would suck. She wasn’t sure how she was going to deal with that.

But his presence here was enough for now; she would take it while it lasted.


End file.
